Posted on 10/04/2016 11:14:37 AM PDT by Altura Ct.
To say the East Carolina University Marching Band struck a wrong chord with fans would be an understatement.
Furious North Carolina football fans booed the band after several members refused to play the National Anthem – while others took a knee.
East Carolina’s blatant disrespect of the Star-Spangled Banner happened Oct. 1st at Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium.
Local reports indicate about a dozen members of the Marching Pirates disgraced themselves on the football field.
At halftime – outraged fans got to have their say.
The stadium was filled with booing as the band prepared to perform its halftime show.
“I am ashamed of this school for letting the band do this,” one irate reader posted on the university’s Facebook page. “Shame ECU, shame!”
“What are you teaching these kids,” one parent asked. “I believe the students have the right to protest but not on that field in uniform.”
And another reader offered this suggestion: “What if those of us who write checks to the university stop sending them as our way of using our voice?”
If the children have a First Amendment right to desecrate our national anthem, certainly the American taxpayers have rights to not fund their anti-American horseplay.
ECU Chancellor Cecil Staton released a statement defending the marching band’s disgraceful actions. Mike Shanahan Interview
“While we acknowledge and understand the disappointment felt by many Pirate fans in response to the events at the beginning of today’s football game, we urge all Pirate students, supporters and participants to act with respect for each other’s views,” the chancellor wrote.
He also affirmed “the rights of our students, staff and faculty to express their personal views.”
Oh really?
So what would have happened if the marching band had formed the words “All Lives Matter” on the football field? Or “Make America Great Again”? Would that have been permissible?
It’s doubtful.
“Civil discourse is an East Carolina value and part of our ECU creed,” he wrote. “We are proud that recent campus conversations on difficult issues have been constructive, meaningful exchanges that helped grow new understanding among our campus community.”
What about disrespecting Old glory and the national anthem and our brave military personnel? Is that part of ECU’s values and creed?
Kiernan Shanahan, a Raleigh attorney and member of the ECU board of trustees, told me he was shocked and appalled.
“The strong boos from the crowd when they realized what was happening certainly echoed the sentiment of the board,” Mr. Shanahan told me. “It was unfortunate and poor judgement for these few band members to disrespect our country, to take advantage of the uniforms they were wearing as ECU Pirate band members – to advance a personal agenda.”
It’s just too bad the chancellor’s statement did not reflect the outrage from most of the community.
“We foster and encourage free speech but that has to be tempered by time, place and circumstances,” Mr. Shanahan said. “It was not the right time, place and (it was) the incorrect manner for these students to articulate personal dissent. It reflected poorly on the band.”
I feel bad for the folks there in the Carolinas because their taxpayer-funded university has been infested with a bunch of left-wing educators spewing this nonsense. Here's a list of email addresses for the university's board of trustees.
Perhaps one of the grownups in charge could muster the courage to tell the marching band to take its anti-American propaganda and blow it out their woodwinds.
Yanking a scholarship wouldn’t fly for various reasons. Just disallow their taking the field if they won’t perform the anthem.
Ban them from playing the field for one year. Actions have consequences.
I’m happy with that response, and a “don’t do it again if you want to remain in the band” seems like the appropriate level of discipline. The awkward wording and grammar are about what I’d expect from a music department, and it doesn’t bother me at all.
If only the NFL dealt with the issue in this manner...
“Being within an hour of the beach doesn’t help with the dedication part, ...”
Is Greenville really only an hour from the beach? Many years ago, I drove through there en route to the Outer Banks, and it seemed like it took forever (3+ hours). Maybe the roads have improved dramatically.
Leni
I guess I exaggerated a bit, should have said under two hours, to Atlantic Beach.
Considering that the Chancellor backed up the protesters, I think the reader should have written "I will stop writing checks", rather than "what if I stop writing checks?".
May as well send the checks to BLM.
Greenville is the city where the blacks petitioned a mostly white street with stately old gorgeous homes to be renamed MLK Blvd.
These houses are so beautiful and the street is lined with huge trees that form a canopy over the street just behind ECU. They purposefully chose this street to stick it to the man and thankfully, didn’t get their way.
I was raised in Greenville and when I was 6, the black boys who were bussed in, would rub their pelvises up against us white girls and nothing was done. The anger and hatred I feel directed at me and my color keeps me far away now.
That being said, the chancellor needs to be run out on a rail.
If the Board is upset fire the Chancellor. That sends the right signal. If the interim does not shape up fire that person. This is not an issue of academic freedom.
“Yanking a scholarship wouldn’t fly for various reasons ...”
If a football player refused to enter a game because he didn’t like a specific play, or a TA refused to teach a discussion section because she didn’t like a particular textbook chapter, I think it would be grounds for revoking the scholarship or assistantship. I know state-supported schools like ECU are held to a different standard for the exercise of 1st amendment rights, but as an employee of such an institution, I am certain that my 1st amendment rights do not include the right to refuse to perform my assigned duties.
My earliest memory of Greenville from childhood, passing through on the way to the beach, was thinking that it was awfully messy with all that trash blowing around. It wasn’t trash, it was cotton bolls, not that it looked much different from a distance.
I don’t remember cotton but I do remember tobacco. There were fields and fields of it all around and all of my male friends would pick tobacco in the summer. We grew up with tobacco barns behind our house where the leaves were hung up to dry.
They’ve been told these protests won’t be tolerated anymore. The band was booed. Most other colleges probably would have let the band members continue to kneel.
Agreed. Suspend the band members. Suspend donations to ECU until they do something.
I meant UNC Graduate :>)
Fire the school teachers that put them up to it.
The grownups ceded control of American Universities when American Universities stopped being educational institutions and became businesses. Businesses with the sole purpose of financing the lifestyles of (what used to be known as) teacher and administrators. Now, they’re terrified to displease entitlement brats because they’re afraid of reduced cash flow.
if they are on the band, they must play the music as prescribed and they follow all protocols as far as behavior and demeanor...or just GO...we don’t want you...
It may be more innocent than it appears. Perhaps the kids had intestinal issues from that lousy Eastern NC style BBQ?
it shouldn't have anything to do with the military or the police....
our anthem is about we citizens...
they are dissing the citizens...
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